Charlotte Stein Quotes & Sayings

#1. He suggested devils, skulls, harsh masculine drawings. This thing was ... heart poundingly good. She wanted to pluck it, and bury her face in it, and keep it in a vase by her bedside.

Charlotte Stein

#2. She loved him for doing things like calling her such a goof. He said it with such warmth and affection, as though her being silly meant something good, instead of how her other boyfriends had felt about it - that being goofy or silly made her a scattered flake who didn't fit into their career plans.

Charlotte Stein

#3. He had lovely eyes, really - not assessing, at all, but big and dark and ... waiting.

Charlotte Stein

#4. Dear God, she couldn't give this man sex. She could barely give it to Van, and he currently smelled so good she just wanted to shove her face under his t-shirt and eat whatever she found there.

Charlotte Stein

#5. You really don't get how amazing you are, do you? Well let me make it really clear for you - so amazing that I would risk everything, just to let you know. Just to tell you I love you, Sergei. I love you. I love you more than my life

Charlotte Stein

#6. She went at him like a nun briskly rubbing a pair of underpants against a washboard, full of pure vim and gusto. But no matter how sexless she tried to be, sex kept slipping in there anyway.

Charlotte Stein

#7. She would have punched him, if she'd had a magical punch-erasing time machine about her person.

Charlotte Stein

#8. She'd never really touched their faces before, but that didn't mean anything. She touched other parts of them all the time. Or at least, they touched things on her and she tried to pretend it wasn't happening in case she accidentally slipped and fell tongue first into their mouths.

Charlotte Stein

#9. He's fucking stone cold deadpan. His pan is so dead he could lay it in a casket and bury it at Bellevue. They made a movie about him once: Dawn of Ivan's Pan.

Charlotte Stein

#10. Apart from the obvious psychological problems, he's the perfect man.

Charlotte Stein

#11. You know it feels good. I can hardly geta ... I don't even ...
There was something amusing about watching him trying to form a coherent sen-tence. Amusing, but arousing at the sametime.

Charlotte Stein

#12. You are a strange people. So loving, yet so lonely, inside. I would lie awake at night and gaze up at the dark blue sky, and ache to feel your loneliness - even though I was always there. I was always there, Mae.

Charlotte Stein

#13. But most of all I'd like to thank the twelve-year-old me, for not giving up. I did tell you it would get better.

Charlotte Stein

#14. There were times, many, many times, when she just didn't get him. She'd heard on numerous occasions that men were bad, wicked creatures, who'd do terrible things at a moment's notice. You wore the wrong skirt or bent over at an inopportune time and BAM. They slipped their penises into you.

Charlotte Stein

#15. Girl with a pie, I'll call it. It's almost like guy with an axe, if you squint hard enough.

Charlotte Stein

#16. You don't know what I long for."
"How can you imagine so when you make it this clear? You long for something different, and lovely, and exciting," he says, as my eyes drift closed. "You long to be outside your own skin, for just a little while.

Charlotte Stein

#17. The bath wasn't the best thing. Lying with him spooned up against her, listening to the rain rattle against the glass and his voice like a rolling wave ... that was the best thing.

Charlotte Stein

#18. I'm actually familiar with someone, and that person's familiar with me, and that feels better than I ever thought it would.

Charlotte Stein

#19. I don't just want you, Serena. I love you.

Charlotte Stein

#20. Yes, but I doubt Jane Eyre is explicit about irrational fucking.' 'Ah, so you believe my only source of information is a Bildungsroman from the nineteenth century about an orphan girl who marries a gigantic arse.

Charlotte Stein

#21. Jesus Christ, you're soaking wet. Seriously, have you been going around with all this between your legs? I can feel it through fucking flannel, honey. Oh my God, I can feel it through flannel, he said, the first words almost steady and sure and the last ones like nothing she'd ever heard before.

Charlotte Stein

#22. People can be two things at once. They can grow fond of you and think of you as a sweet person and still want to keep treating you like shit.

Charlotte Stein

#23. Ohhh that's good. Fuck you're greedy. What do you want, huh? Tell me what you want.

Charlotte Stein

#24. I hate him. Except for all the places where I love him half to death.

Charlotte Stein

#25. And Jamie didn't want her either, even though he'd kissed her like her mouth had been made of candy in the middle of a candy-drought. He'd probably just slipped, and fell. Onto her lips.

Charlotte Stein

#26. We're never doing this again. The next time I leave, you're coming with me.

Charlotte Stein

#27. I'll tell you, got it? I'll tell you - it's because you are the kindest person I've ever met. Just the kindest fucking person. How about that, huh?

Charlotte Stein

#28. Go to sleep now, Abbie. I'll go to sleep with you, and dream my blackbird is gone, too. You looked up at me, and it went away. For a little while, I swear, it went away.

Charlotte Stein

#29. Who cares what most men do? I say. He looks startled. Clearly the idea of not giving a shit has failed to occur to him.

Charlotte Stein

#30. Why did no one tell me that a motorbike feels like this between your legs?

Charlotte Stein

#31. It's really kind of you, she settled on, finally.
But in response he just shrugged. No big deal. The nicest thing anyone had ever done for her was really no big deal at all.

Charlotte Stein

#32. Just that one word - sound - sent a strong answering pulse through her body. His tongue curled around syllables that weren't there, like a promise. This is what you'll get, if you just let me hear.

Charlotte Stein

#33. And I want the heart. I do. I don't care if it's black with despair and riddled with rot. I'd live inside the bits of him that are barely functioning, if I could. I'd spend the rest of my days trying to piece him back together, if he'd let me.

Charlotte Stein

#34. When I hold him for just a second, like this, and feel how soft his skin is. How furry he is in front, and so big too. It's sort of like hugging a really lovely bear, only without the word in there that I'm absolutely not doing. I'm not hugging him, all right?

Charlotte Stein

#35. You want it, you slutty little bookworm.

Charlotte Stein

#36. Are you fucking kidding me? How do you get this wet? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. I don't even ... ohhhhh God. It's all over your legs. Oh baby, I'm gonna fuck you so hard.

Charlotte Stein

#37. Hey, calm down, OK? My penis isn't going to suddenly lunge at your face.

Charlotte Stein

#38. When she finally pulled away from him - much to Aley's stuttering forward reluctance - he wanted only to echo Aley's words:
Oh! Do it again.

Charlotte Stein

#39. And if all of that makes me want to do something very stupid, like stroke his hair and pet him softly, well. We just won't go into that.

Charlotte Stein

#40. His voice sounded like molten metal. As if he had something thick at the back of his throat and it was making him sound deeper and richer than he actually was.

Charlotte Stein

#41. I can't just live here, Van. I can't. You know I can't. What would I contribute? What can I give to you? I - "
"You give me everything."
"Please don't say that."
"Why not? It's true. I don't even laugh for anyone but you.

Charlotte Stein

#42. Their legs tangle together real easy. His hand goes over hers, fingers interlacing. So natural, too, as though they'd never said a harsh word to one another in their lives.

Charlotte Stein

#43. Am I ... not what you were expecting?
Of course, my immediate instinct is to say no. No, you're not what I was expecting. You're so heavy and solid and masculine that I just want to climb you like a tree, and maybe live on your face for a couple of decades.

Charlotte Stein

#44. Sol? As much as I appreciate you making me this lovely womanly blanket ... you think we could try lying like normal people who don't want to merge into one being?"
"Can't have that. We'd make one gross merged being. Your ass and my ass together? The universe would run in terror.

Charlotte Stein

#45. I want to kiss you. I want to so badly I can barely think of anything else. When you enter a room it's my only thought, and it torments me night and day.

Charlotte Stein

#46. You're so lovely when you laugh. So lovely it breaks my heart, he said.

Charlotte Stein

#47. Sometimes I'm so afraid of making the wrong choice that I just don't make any choice at all.

Charlotte Stein

#48. I love you too, I've always loved you," she said, finally. Then there was nothing left to tell, but the one word that made his dark eyes light up, brighter than any moon. "I always will, my Tigerlily.

Charlotte Stein

#49. Better to have rarely loved and hardly lost, than ever to have loved at all. Better to be safe than sorry, better to stay out of the kitchen if you don't want to get burned

Charlotte Stein

#50. What does it matter?" she asks, and though his answer likely should take a thousand years to come, he gets it out quicker than a snap of the fingers.
"Because I love you!" he says. "Because I'm in love with you, God help me.

Charlotte Stein

#51. Certainly seems it when she half-turns in his arms and he just leans right down into her and kisses and kisses. Oh, how syrupy-slow his kisses are. She could live in those warm, wet pulls.

Charlotte Stein

#52. But then if I'm being honest, most happy-sounding things probably wouldn't suit him. He could be riding the Matterhorn at Disneyland while eating ten tubs of gingerbread ice cream and still seem as fierce and angry as fuck.

Charlotte Stein

#53. I like you. I like you so much that I ... I think about you an inadvisable amount. But I really need there to be some more ... dating in what we're doing. Can we not just go out some time, have drinks, walk home, kiss goodnight?

Charlotte Stein

#54. I can even see that little flourish he often does with his hand. The one that looks like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, only the rabbit is your dignity and the hat is him slowly strangling it to death in front of you. Certainly

Charlotte Stein

#55. It's not even a comfort when he's kind about it either, because in a way I don't want him to be. I want him to tell me that I'm no good, and that maybe I should get out of the car and walk in the rain like the tragic heroine of some melodramatic novel.

Charlotte Stein

#56. Too often women are expected to be considerate and thoughtful when really fear and doubt would be a more reasonable response.

Charlotte Stein

#57. I would never forbid you. I can't forbid you. It's not in my power to, and it never should be.

Charlotte Stein

#58. It's the only thing I never understood about him,that he had you ... he had you right in the palm of his hand. And yet somehow he didn't want to spend every second of every day touching you all over. He didn't want to make love to you.

Charlotte Stein

#59. But love isn't something that can simply bend around all barriers. It isn't a coat you can wear for all occasions.

Charlotte Stein

#60. Never let some guy take advantage of you just 'cause you're worried about seeming mean,

Charlotte Stein

#61. Someday he'll actually kiss me, and I'll turn to dust and blow away.

Charlotte Stein

#62. It feels like you dropped your nightstick down your pants.'

'Oh, so that's where that went.'

'I'm not kidding. Is this all you? Because if so, I think I may need to rethink a few things. I may need to rethink the shape and depth of my vagina.

Charlotte Stein

#63. It's enough to send a spike of sensation through me, and enough to make him push out this delicious sound. It's like an oh with the smooth bits sawn off, all rough and guttural and so good to hear.

Charlotte Stein

#64. I try to act cool. I've never had a hand on my thigh, under the table. Cathy - my brother's wife - is telling a very funny story about the family's trips to Bridlington, and her elderly Grandmother is doling out peas, which makes the experience even stranger.

Charlotte Stein

#65. I mean, he did say vagina, didn't he? And if he did, then how come it sounded so exciting? Vagina is pretty much the least exciting word in the world. It's something your doctor says to you shortly before he invades it with what looks like a weapon from our robotic future.

Charlotte Stein

#66. He nods, eagerly. I wish to God I didn't have to add that 'eagerly' onto that description.

Charlotte Stein

#67. No, baby," he said. "I ain't never satisfied when it comes to you. Even when I'm right there touching you, I want more of you.

Charlotte Stein

#68. I know, he says, and it's the strangest thing. I can tell he's smiling, slow and syrupy, when he says it.

Charlotte Stein

#69. She's so elderly that I'm sure she was alive before sex was invented. She conceived Mick's Dad by shaking hands with a stork.

Charlotte Stein

#70. I'm on the other end of the spectrum from oblivious, whatever that's called. Extreme noticing, perhaps? Severe and chronic attention-paying?

Charlotte Stein

#71. I want to taste that sweet little mouth of yours," he says, but he's not done. He's just using a dramatic pause to build the tension for the next bit. And it's good that he does, because the next part is this: "Before I make you come so hard you forget who you are.

Charlotte Stein

#72. For years I thought babies came out of belly buttons and masturbation meant chewing your food really well

Charlotte Stein

#73. It's just ... You know. You drive me crazy. You've always driven me crazy."
I think my mind is now all over the floor.
"And you don't think it might have been a good idea to maybe tell me this? I've spent the last ten years pining for you like an idiot, you idiot.

Charlotte Stein

#74. Don't leave me again, he tells me, only he doesn't just do it once. He says it over and over, until I'm melting. He's going to have to let go, because hands traditionally can't hold onto liquidised people.

Charlotte Stein